


street signs don't look the same

by DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, annabeth is angsty, i have decided that rachel and annabeth don't hate each other, percy got hit by a car, they're both stressed college students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl/pseuds/DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl
Summary: Percy Jackson had forgotten about all the ways you could die, without the gods even being involved. Whoops.(Title from the song Grow by Conan Gray)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 62





	street signs don't look the same

All Percy could think was that he was an idiot. He had survived nearly nineteen years on planet earth, and never before had he done something this stupid. He’d done a lot of stupid things in his time, but never once before had he actually accidentally stepped into traffic. 

But somehow he had made a mistake today. Somehow his focus had slipped and so had his feet, and now he was in the hospital, with a taxi’s-front-bumper shaped bruise on his side, and a broken arm, and a concussion, and a furious Annabeth standing next to his hospital bed. 

“Tell me again,” she broke off to glance at her phone, she was texting Sally in an attempt to explain, “what happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Percy, for what felt like the thirtieth time, but was probably only the fourth. “I was distracted I guess.”

Annabeth swiped her phone screen on her shoulder to try and clean it and did her best to finish her text. And then she gave up.

“Do you seriously expect that your mom will just accept, ‘idk?’ as an explanation for getting hit by a car?” She asked.

“Yeah, no,” said Percy, trying to sit up.

“Hey, please don’t do that,” said the nurse who was fixing something.

Percy grinned at the nurse and continued doing his best to sit up. The nurse winced. So did Percy, because he was bracing himself with his arms, and one of them was broken.

“It’s my busted body,” he said under his breath.

“Seaweed brain,” said Annabeth to her phone.

“Thanks for the concern, o wisest of girls,” said Percy.

“I’m trying to think something up to appease your mom for like forty seconds,” said Annabeth.

“Tell her I was thinking about school, it’s probably true,” said Percy.

“Please lie back down,” said the nurse, “or at least lean back.”

“Wait a second,” said Percy, ignoring the nurse, “is my backpack ok? My computer was in it. I have papers due. Oh gods, Annabeth, I have papers due. I’m going to fail out of college in my second semester. I’m gonna have a near-death experience, and manage to ruin my entire future all in the same week. Gods Annabeth, I’m such a failure.”

Annabeth recognized a panicking Percy when she saw one, so she shoved her phone into her pocket.

“Hon, it’s ok, you’re going to be ok,” she said, a hand on his arm and one behind his back.

“But Annabeth, I have papers due,” said Percy, “I’m gonna die.”

“Your backpack is fine, I checked your computer while I was in the waiting room, everything is fine,” said Annabeth.

“Let’s just lean back,” said the nurse (who had not seemed to walk from the other side of the room, only to appear), a hand on Percy’s spine, guiding him down.

“This is not the worst you’ve been through, we’re going to make it,” said Annabeth, stroking back some of Percy’s hair from his forehead.

The nurse looked decidedly concerned at that. Most people didn’t categorize getting hit by a car as ‘not the worst they’ve been through’, but when Percy had been rushed into the emergency room, it had been pretty impossible not to notice all the weird scars. It was becoming increasingly obvious to the nurse that Percy was not a normal accident victim.

“Are all of your papers finished?” Said Annabeth, because there were no guarantees.

“Are yours?” Said Percy, raising one eyebrow.

Annabeth snorted and gave Percy a look that said, ‘What do you think? I finished all of my assignments in the small hours of this morning.’

The nurse left, because he felt as though he was intruding on a private conversation between two stressed college students.

“Do you want your phone?” Said Annabeth.

Percy held out his hand, and Annabeth fished his phone out of his miraculously (mostly) undamaged backpack.

“Seventeen texts from mom, five from Rachel, twelve from Paul,” said Percy.

“Of course,” said Annabeth.

“All the texts from Paul are just, ‘Oh my god Percy are you ok please reply’,” said Percy.

“What are you gonna say?” said Annabeth, sinking down into the plastic chair next to Percy’s bed and pulling out her phone too.

“I said that I’m fine,” said Percy, “That’s just what i’m gonna say to everyone. Didn’t Rachel already text you? Why is everyone texting me? I’m the one who got hit by the car, I should be resting.”

“You should, but do you ever?” Said Annabeth.

“Any good memes on Instagram?” Said Percy, quickly sending the same text to everyone who had expressed concern about him.

“Few,” said Annabeth, scrolling ever upwards.

“If you run across some good ones let me know. When do I get to leave again?”

“Tomorrow, if you can manage not to break yourself any more.”

Percy gave Annabeth a peace sign, which translated roughly to, ‘no promises’, and shot her a winning grin. She rolled her eyes at him and looked back down at her phone. They lapsed into silence for a few moments, scrolling on their phones.

“Hey, Beth?” Said Percy.

“Yeah,” said Annabeth.

“I love you.”

Those three words punched Annabeth in the gut. What if she had never heard him say them again? She had spent the last six years almost losing Percy at every turn, and she’d thought it was over. She had thought that they were through the danger. She had thought that they were done almost losing one another. But today she had almost lost Percy again.

She’d cried when she got the call, because it had hit her then, too, how close she was to losing him all over again. But then she’d pulled herself together, walked into the hospital, and braced for bad news. She had nearly cried out of relief when a nurse had told her that Percy would be fine, but she’d pulled herself together again. She’d told herself that everything was fine, taken Percy’s backpack for him, made sure that his computer and phone were operational, and distracted herself until she’d been told she could see him.

But suddenly holding it together wasn’t an option for her. She didn’t look up, because she knew if she did, she’d be sobbing. She made a mental note for herself to go to bed early, even though she knew that probably wasn’t happening.

“I love you too,” she said, “please don’t ever get yourself hit by a car again.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Percy, reaching for her hand.

So they sat there for a beat, fingers intertwined. Annabeth was fighting tears. She had almost lost this in the blink of an eye.


End file.
